Grant finally managed to wrestle her from Gerry’s grip and thrust her away from the edge of the roof. I dropped the gun and rushed toward Gerry as I saw him unbalancing precariously at the edge. He lost his footing, catching hold of the crowstep gable as he fell. I grabbed one wrist and Grant the other. We leaned over the roof, looking down into the anguished face of the broken father.
“It’s over,” Grant said soothingly. “Just come on up before anyone else gets hurt.”
“It was over long ago,” Gerry said, the tears rolling down his face. “Most of me died that day with Olivia. She was my world. Now Stella’s gone and Bonnie’s gone. There’s nothing left for me. Just let me go.”
“What about Summer?” I said. “She’s still here. She needs you.”
“She’s lost now too. She might as well be dead. He’ll poison her life and abandon her like he’s done with all the others. Just let me go,” he pleaded.
Gerry went limp and we started to haul him up. I could feel the rough stone of the parapet shredding the silk of my dress and cutting through to the skin underneath. I gritted my teeth and held on even as Gerry’s weight raked me across the knife like stone. Grant was taking the bulk of Gerry’s weight, and I thought that we might be able to pull him up even if he wasn’t willing to help. I looked into his eyes as he hung below me, and he gave a sad shake of his head. In the distance I heard the melancholy strains of the bagpipes calling the guests to dinner. In that moment Gerry suddenly gave a sharp twist to both hands. The unexpected movement startled us and we loosed our grip. I watched in horror as Gerry fell in slow motion down to a crumpled heap on the gravel drive in front of the house.
The police rushed to his side, but I knew that it was useless.
Bill burst through the door from the attic just slightly ahead of Rory. I heard Summer cry out “Dad” as she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.
“That was damn stupid,” Bill said, glowering at both of us. “You were lucky he didn’t have a gun. We could have lost all three of you.”
“But you didn’t,” I pointed out. I retrieved the gun from the floor at my feet and slumped against the chimney, physically and emotionally exhausted. “We tried to save him, but he didn’t want to be saved. For him it was all over.”
—
Michaelson shrieked into the courtyard as the ambulance was loading the body and was soon deep in conversation with Bill. Grant had gone in to check on our guests, and I stood shivering on the gravel drive waiting to answer the questions I knew were coming. As they came my way, Bill silently draped his battered Barbour coat around my shoulders before leaving me with Michaelson. I answered his questions for nearly an hour before being allowed to return to the house.
Patrick, Cam, and Louisa had done their best to shield our guests from the tragedy unfolding outside. They were all still in the dining room enjoying dinner, but I had no appetite for food and I was in no fit condition to be seen. I was chilled to the bone and stiff all over. I started up the staircase to clean up, grimacing with each step. From behind me I heard the door to Grant’s study open, and he emerged, crossing to the foot of the staircase.
“Are you okay?”
“I thought you were at dinner?”
“I’m not much in the mood to eat. Patrick and Ken Nakimoto are hosting, and Louisa has everything else under control.”
“Where’s Summer?”
“With her father.”
“I’m just going to get cleaned up,” I said, indicating the tattered bloodstained front of the dress I was wearing.
I turned to continue up the stairs. Each time I stopped moving, my muscles seized up and I staggered slightly.
Grant was at my side immediately, giving me an arm to lean on. “You need a doctor.”
“It’s nothing serious, just wasn’t paying much attention to what I was lying on when we were trying to pull Gerry back to safety.” I could still see his face as he fell. That was the image that would stay with me. Not the twisted mask of hatred, but the devastated father bereft of his only child giving up on life.
Grant stayed with me as we reached the guest room. I lowered myself onto the bed and lifted the edge of my skirt and saw the deep cuts the rough stone parapet had left from my knees to my waist. If I wasn’t careful, it would scar. I heard Grant’s intake of breath and saw the concern in his eyes.
“I’ll get something.”
He left the room, and I pulled the ragged dress off over my head, put on the robe hanging in the bathroom, and began washing the dirt out of the scrapes with a washcloth. It stung badly, but my wounds at least would heal.
I heard the door open, and Grant returned with a first-aid kit. He led me gently to the bed and pushed me back on the pile of pillows. He bent his head over the livid strips of skin and began to tenderly apply antiseptic to the cuts.
“Why didn’t you get this looked at right away?”
“Michaelson had questions and I wanted to be sure Summer was okay.” I winced as Grant reached a particularly raw spot near my pelvic bone.
“We should call a doctor.”
“No, there’s nothing to stitch,” I said. “It’ll heal. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”
Grant laid a gentle finger on the white scar that ran across my right hip. “I can see. How did that happen?” he asked, trying to distract my attention.
“I was grazed by a bullet a couple of years ago while I was on assignment. Medical staff wasn’t exactly cosmetic surgeons and I ended up with a souvenir.” In spite of the pain, I could feel an electric thrill running up my spine as Grant continued to apply the ointment, and I shivered in spite of myself.
“Am I hurting you?” Grant asked.
I shook my head and bit my lip from the inside.
Grant finished and put some strips of gauze across the whole mess. “You need to stay put for a while.”
“No, really, I’ll be fine.” I tried to swing my legs over the side of the bed, but my muscles had tightened up again and I found I couldn’t move.
Grant firmly put my feet back on the bed and pulled the sheet over me. “You’ve done your part, now you need to rest.”
“But—”
“No buts. Are you hungry?”
“No, just a little cold.”
“I’ll get you a blanket.”
I flinched as he tried to drape the extra weight on top of my legs.
“Can you shift over slightly?”
I moved farther from the edge of the bed and Grant sat next to me, leaning against the headboard. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into the warmth of his body. I had to say I was warming quickly.
“Better?”
“Yes, but you need to get back to your guests.”
“They won’t even notice I’m gone. They’re drinking through my whisky at an amazing clip.”
A whisky sounded good, but I didn’t want to move.
“Would you rather I fetched Rory?” he asked.
“Why would you do that?”
“Well, you and he seem to be quite close. I thought maybe…”
“You thought wrong,” I said indignantly. “He’s in love with someone else and has been for years.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t tell if the response was a simple acknowledgment or an expression of surprise.
Before I could think better of it, I said, “Wouldn’t Summer be upset to find you here?”
“Maybe, but she is where she should be, with her father. She’s been following me around the house like a lost puppy for the past week and a half. The girl has some serious daddy issues. Why do you think she’s been drawn to an old relic like me?”
“You’re no relic.”
“Compared to her I am.” Grant looked down into my face. “You can’t seriously think that I’d be stupid enough to wander into that mess?”
“You have been very attentive.”
“You’re the one that dropped her in my lap. I’ve been babysitting. You and Louisa. What kind of person do you
think I am?”
The word decent sprang into my mind. Finally, the second of Grant’s words.
“You’re a good man,” I said. “I’m sorry for getting you mixed up in all this.”
“Certainly never a dull moment when you’re around,” Grant said with a chuckle.
He pulled me closer and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders. The strain of the past few days was taking its toll. Grant started to tell me about the Japanese and the tasting at the distillery, and I found my eyes closing.
When I finally stirred it was dark outside and Grant’s head was leaning against mine, his body relaxed and his breath stirring my hair with each exhalation. I stayed motionless, in part from the stiffness that had settled in my bones again and in part because I had no desire to move. I lay there, feeling the steady, reassuring beat of his heart next to me; content in myself, yet deeply sad for Patty and Summer. Gerry’s betrayal would be a devastating blow to both of them.
I just couldn’t get my mind around the idea that the man I knew who was so kind to his girls would be willing to kill Summer to keep her away from the man he perceived as toxic.
Grant suddenly started in his sleep and looked down at me in confusion. “Sorry, you fell asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you by moving. I must have nodded off.”
“It’s fine, I’m just a bit stiff,” I said, struggling to sit up a bit.
Grant pulled me up and put another pillow behind my head before sitting back on the edge of the bed and lowering his mouth to mine, kissing me gently.
Chapter 26
“You have to be more careful,” Grant murmured. “My nerves can only take so much.”
I reached a hand up and wound my fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, wanting to pull him down on top of me, but sadly I was in no condition.
Grant tucked a wayward curl behind my ear and dropped a kiss onto each of my closed eyelids. A simple gesture that drew a gasp from deep inside me.
I opened my eyes and looked into his. They were a deep shade of emerald green, hinting at the passion I’d sensed there before. In my head I was saying we shouldn’t be doing this, but my lips were not cooperating. We were silent for some time lost in each other until Grant looked down at my stomach and saw that blood was seeping through the bandages and onto the sheet.
He slipped off the side of the bed and kissed me on the forehead.
“We need to get someone to look at this. You can’t just lie here in pain.”
“I’m not in that much pain,” I said with a slight smile. But I was lying. The pain was getting worse and I could feel a chill coming on now that Grant had left my side.
He ducked out of the room, and soon Louisa appeared at the door. It was nearly midnight. The guests were gone. Bill had taken Rory and Summer home. Michaelson had left a message that he would be in touch tomorrow, and Louisa had enlisted Patrick and Cam in the kitchen to dry dishes.
“Let’s take a look at you,” she said, carefully peeling the gauze off the wounds. “Good God, what a mess. And Grant used plain gauze,” she said, shaking her head and carefully pulling the thin bandages away from the cuts. “Men. Why didn’t he get the nonstick stuff?” With Louisa’s help I made it to the bathroom and back without stumbling, then she removed the rest of the bandages and piled pillows up on either side of me in the bed to keep the blankets from coming into contact with my skin.
“That should keep you warm enough,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
As Louisa left through the bedroom door Liam streaked in, jumped onto the bed, and began licking my chin. I buried my face in his soft fur and fought the urge to cry. I was glad that Rory wasn’t the killer and happy that Summer was safe, but I couldn’t help grieving for Gerry. He was a good man whose principles had been perverted by grief and pain. A passionate hatred that had distilled over time until it poured forth as death and destruction.
—
In the days that followed the ordeal on the roof, Summer and Rory retreated to Fell Farm, leaving the security guards to drive away the press. Robert Llewellyn-Jones was camped on the road outside, begging for an exclusive, but at least he had the sense to make himself scarce when I came over.
Michaelson and the Met had been quick to follow up on Gerry, and their investigation left no doubt that it was Gerry who had been responsible for the murders of Hamish Dunn and Bruce Penrose, as well as the injuries to Ian Waters. Having wrongly accused Rory, Michaelson was willing to let me share the details of the report, accurately guessing that he was not the flavor of the month around the Hendricks home.
Rory, Summer, and I sat at the kitchen table, looking out at the mists that had returned to shroud the hills along the east side of the valley, sipping tea from Rory’s mugs.
Rory leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms like a petulant child. “So they’ve decided I’m not a murderer after all,” Rory growled.
“Yes, in spite of all Gerry did to try to frame you.”
“What changed Michaelson’s mind?”
“When they searched Gerry’s place they found a scrapbook he’d kept of bits and pieces from Olivia’s life. She was quite a gifted artist. She’d been given a scholarship to an art school in London, and she was doing quite well until she met Hamish. There were several pictures of her and the band from the social pages, and then suddenly her obituary. It must have been a staggering blow to Gerry and Stella, but Stella seemed to deal with it better. She turned her attention to Patty and Bonnie and Summer, and eventually she was focused on her own illness.”
“Poor soul. She had such a rough time with the chemo and yet she never complained,” Summer said softly.
“After Stella died, Gerry began to write in the blank pages at the end of Olivia’s scrapbook. A creepy addendum at the end of her life story. It was full of ramblings, and the entries became more fractured and unbalanced with each passing week. Bonnie’s illness weighed heavily on him, and he began to blame you for that too.”
“Me?”
“In his mind, you were the cancer that destroyed their lives.” I poured myself another cup of tea. “Then you came back to the country and it fueled a fresh rage. He couldn’t stop the cancer that killed Bonnie, so he was determined to stop you. He began by killing Hamish. He wanted him to die from the same poison that killed Olivia. He spent enough time at Ravenscourt to know where Hamish kept his stash of Red Bull and vodka. Didn’t take much to push Hamish over the edge, and Gerry got really lucky that he was in Paris at the time. An airtight alibi. But with you back on the scene, killing Hamish wasn’t enough. Ian was next on his list.”
“But why? Ian was Summer’s godfather, and he and Patty were great to her.”
“Ian publically praised Hamish for taking steps to get clean. Getting help with his addiction and getting off the heroin. Gerry couldn’t forgive him for supporting Hamish and helping him to survive his darkness when Olivia couldn’t.”
“Was he behind the incident at the gallery, too?” Rory asked.
I turned to Summer, who was looking devastated by this new Gerry. “I got off on the wrong foot with that one,” I said, catching Summer’s eye and grimacing. “Gerry helped you out at the gallery working on the CCTV, didn’t he? I didn’t make the connection and I should have. He knew it wasn’t working when he went in. He also knew you were struggling financially. He wanted to help you. He thought you could cash in on the insurance if they thought it was connected to the vendetta against the Rebels. Made it easy to go in and spray-paint the words on the wall and start the sprinklers.”
Summer started to cry softly. “He was so dedicated to all of us, me especially. How did it all go wrong?” Rory put an arm around her shoulder, and I noticed she didn’t pull away.
“And I suppose he put up the video at the concert?”
“He did. Unfortunately he was also responsible for overriding the light functions and for the surge that rocked the tech tower.”
“But the surge wasn’t on purpose?”
“Michaelson says we’ll probably never know. There’s no direct proof one way or the other. He was controlling the video feed and the lights. Maybe Leo picked up on something, but I hope not.”
“Was it Gerry I saw watching the house?” Summer asked.
I nodded. “He was up fairly often, keeping a watch on the two of you. He saw Penrose break into the barn, and I think he was afraid the police might latch onto him as the prime suspect, not Rory. Gerry reached out to Penrose as Rich Henderson and offered to sell him one of Mickey Dawson’s guitars. He went to the room early that morning with Rory’s guitar that he’d swiped from the show. Killed Penrose—no doubt getting one back for Bonnie—and then left the guitar and the song lyric behind, expecting it to seal the deal on Rory. He hadn’t counted on Simon Moye muddying the water.”
“But he was filming at the Glen that morning,” Summer said.
“Later that morning, yes. He came straight up from Stirling and started filming. I should have picked up on that little detail. I knew something was bothering me about the video when I saw it, but I was too preoccupied to place it. The daylight shots weren’t early-morning shots, as Gerry claimed. The mists had burned off and the shadows were shorter and more distinct.” I sighed. “Sometimes I just get too focused on the close-ups and lose the big picture.”
“You see plenty of details,” Rory said quietly.
“By the time we came to Saturday night he was near to breaking. Having to watch you and Summer together was the final straw. He saw his opportunity and took it.”
Summer had tears rolling down her face. “I loved him. I can’t believe he could do this to me.”
“He loved you, too,” I said. “He just wasn’t himself anymore.”
Rory stayed with his arm around Summer, looking concerned. The crisis on the roof had brought the two of them closer than they might ever have managed to be if left to their own devices.
“I can’t thank you enough for what you did for us,” Rory said. “I owe you more than I can possibly repay.”
Death Distilled Page 24
